Constraining halo energetics using Sunyaev-Zel’dovich measurements

Nick Battaglia (Princeton)

August 22, 2016

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Abstract: Both feedback and non-thermal processes play important roles in the thermodynamic and star-formation properties of the intracluster medium (ICM). Recently, there have been exciting detections of the kinetic Sunyaez-Zel’dovich (SZ) from galaxy clusters. These measurements and future ones provide new windows into the thermodynamic properties of the ICM. I will show how we can constrain the average feedback and non-thermal pressure support through the combination of thermal and kinetic SZ SZ measurements. Additionally, I will show how to mitigate the modeling uncertainties associated with the baryonic processes in halos that currently limit the cosmological information which is extracted from SZ measurements.